A Chinese businessman who bought and ate three tigers has been sentenced
to 13 years in prison.
During the trial the wealthy real estate developer, identified only by
his surname Xu, had "a special hobby of grilling tiger bones, boning
tiger paws, storing tiger penis, eating tiger meat and drinking tiger
blood alcohol".
Xu organized three separate trips last year for a total of 15 people,
including himself, to Leizhou in the southern province of Guangdong,
where they bought tigers for a "huge amount of money" that were killed
and dismembered as they watched.
One of the party filmed the entire process of a tiger slaughter on his
mobile phone.
That footage was later obtained by police.
Police also seized eight pieces of animal meat and bones from a
refrigerator in Xu's home, some of which were later identified as tiger
parts, adding that 16 geckos and a cobra were also found.
Earlier this year a court in Guangxi convicted the group of 15 of
"illegally transporting precious and endangered wild animal products",
but the conviction was not reported at the time.
Xu was sentenced to 13 years in prison and fined 1.55 million yuan (£160,000, $250,000). The others were jailed for terms ranging five and six-and-a-half years and given smaller fines. The group appealed and a higher court upheld the ruling on Monday. Tiger bones have long been an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, supposedly for a capacity to strengthen the human body, and while they have been removed from its official ingredient list, the belief persists among some.
It is a long-held belief across parts of Asia that penises of animals such as tigers and seals can boost men's sexual performance. However, there is no orthodox scientific evidence for such claims. Decades of trafficking and habitat destruction have slashed the tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to approximately 3,000, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species, where the tiger is classed as endangered.
Xu was sentenced to 13 years in prison and fined 1.55 million yuan (£160,000, $250,000). The others were jailed for terms ranging five and six-and-a-half years and given smaller fines. The group appealed and a higher court upheld the ruling on Monday. Tiger bones have long been an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, supposedly for a capacity to strengthen the human body, and while they have been removed from its official ingredient list, the belief persists among some.
It is a long-held belief across parts of Asia that penises of animals such as tigers and seals can boost men's sexual performance. However, there is no orthodox scientific evidence for such claims. Decades of trafficking and habitat destruction have slashed the tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to approximately 3,000, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species, where the tiger is classed as endangered.
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